Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Carswell]

The point I was illustrating is that MPs often look at recall, but recoil from it because they fear it will somehow make them vulnerable. I would argue that MPs who do their job properly, stick to their promises and do their best by their constituents will find that their hand is strengthened by recall. It should in fact give them greater confidence to do their job in the knowledge that, if there is a question mark over whether they stay here, those who trust them the most will make the final decision.

There has been some suggestion that real recall would lead to vexatious attempts to remove MPs. Let us think about that for a second. This country has had a recall vote—we do not call it that, but that is what it was. In 1997, the Liberal Democrats won the Winchester seat at the election. The Conservatives claimed that the Lib Dems had done so by error and that they had been cheated of victory because they had lost by a mere two votes, and that that was somehow wrong. They got a judicially sanctioned recall, but it was seen by local people for what it was—a vexatious attempt by bad losers to overturn the democratic will of the people. What happened? Having initially lost by two, the Conservatives went on to lose by more than 20,000. I thus emphasise that we have nothing to fear from vexatious attempts at recall.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I have been following the hon. Gentleman’s arguments over a long time. In many ways, he talks a great deal of sense. Does he agree, however, that we have to draw a distinction between failure of conduct and professional judgment. For example, I have been running a campaign on incinerators in my constituency. Some 65,000 constituents voted no. I was actually on their side, but had I been against them, their recourse would have been to kick me out at the next election. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if I had gone against 65,000 people in my constituency, I would have been vulnerable to a recall Bill that is cast too widely?